Sandbox

[RPC]

Rebuilding stations

O.O I did this in Dynamic Systems V3! yay!
All that needs to be done is refining the system... and to do the rest of Drako's list

[DSMK2]

Might as well toss my ideas on interstellar travel w/o stargates, deep space, and other stuff:

Interstellar Travel
To get start your long (or short) and arduous travel between stars, you'll have to travel quite far from the center of any star system you're in, you'll "auto-gate" into the galaxy map, zoomed into the current part of the galaxy you're in. Here time goes faster, thus fuel will drain faster, and your travel speed slows to a very slow crawl without specialized high power FTL Drives.

Appearing on the galaxy map are (labeled) known stars you've been to, and possibly numerous other systems (possibly without stargates), represented by some flashing icon. Entering star systems from the galaxy map is merely akin to using a stargate, except you'll be placed at a random position far "outside" the star system you're in, facing sunward.

Traveling through the galaxy will land you into interesting random encounters and dangers of two types: System and Encounter.
System - Enter into a unique system containing a blackhole, magnetar, or some very high energy (radiation!) pulsars that can kill you instantly, though some might contain valuable resources or artifacts created long before humans traveled to other stars.
Encounter - Find yourself in interstellar space (blank system) in the normal game scale, fight or make peace with space faring civilizations, some of which left their dying system, or never had the luxury of a stargate. Might just find yourself against giant tentacled beasts...

Might need to create some truly alien ships for this.

Deep space
Travel far enough from the system, and you'll find asteroids with increasingly rare materials and planetoids. Occasionally you might find a deep space research station. Residents here are usually are away from home for extensive periods of time, or live there, goods you bring from the system will be highly coveted. Possible Korolov missions to these stations?

Deep space starts once you leave the last planet's orbital path.

Other ideas
Station planets - Some planets are inhabited by the various factions out there in the Transcendence universe, and some might have had installed multiple surface planetary defense weapons which can severely damage your ship. Populated planets, and the such. Having a stray railgun shot hitting the planet should have dire consequences (You wiped out a city! Now they want your head!).
Landable planets - "Planet-gate" onto the planet's surface, mine a mountain out for resources, or capture wild beasts with unmanned drones... Instead of space, ground, instead of asteroids, mountains, stations, cities... You get the idea. Flying here will be like flying with a inertia-less drive. Expect to encounter fighters or flying fortresses if you land there illegally.
Mod ship recognition - The world recognizes that your ship is unique, and it makes comments based on your ships stats... "YOUR SHIP IS IMPOSSIBLE"
Faction Reputation - You killed a million of them, why do they still keep on fruitlessly attacking you?

[RPC]

Also, how does the ship's targeting computer know all the ships in-game? It would be interesting to have new ships as "unknown".

[RPC]

Another fluff idea: a news feed
examples could be:
"Charon fortress gets obliderated by crazy pilrim"
"Gramps says '3Dv's are the bane of society!'"
amd
"Ares Prime found by same crazy Pilgrim"

[Drako Slyith]

I think the news might be possible with similar mechanics as the accomplishments. (we get a lot of different scenarios in which the news picks one you finished and then displays it.

[RPC]

A couple ideas just popped into my head:
1. Transpace Jumpdrive does not work because there is no Elysium in the current Sandbox setup.
2. While playing with Prophet's Dynamic Sovereigns, every ship was green on the LRS.
I couldn't tell the difference between Charon, Centauri or the Commonwealth.
One way I propose in fixing this faction colors on the LRS.
Is there a ticket for that already?

[alterecco]

One way I propose in fixing this faction colors on the LRS.
Is there a ticket for that already?

I dont think there is a ticket for it, but it has certainly been discussed a lot. I dont think we ever reached a good suggestion however

[RPC]

What were the other alternatives to faction colors?

[alterecco]

I don't think it was really related to factions. It was more a talk about general enhancement of the LRS, with colors for neutrals etc... I can't really recall it. I think it would be fine to start a thread about LRS enhancement, discuss realistic changes and then write a ticket.

[shanejfilomena]

the LRS, with colors for neutrals etc....

In my experience with multi-"millions" of my money spent on some games before I found Transcendence and live a happier life,
the only major difference I recall of the LRS colors are that neutrals being YELLOW was used alot.
eg: Independent traders, allies.
the only problem with color coding neutrals is that when a player changes alliances or sovereigns it throws the game a bad cookie trying to reset the colors when it has too many options and you often get an engine placing two colors on one object based on attributes of the object.
in Transcendence this would most probably happen the most dealing with Huari and Ferians because they would inherit the attributes of friend, ally and enemy all at the same time.

[RPC]

Should Sandbox still have Sustain available without donating to the Sisters?

My thoughts:
The player isn't exactly a pigrim, but maybe if we allow some kind of background that is a pilgrim, they have sustain as a free power.
So get rid of sustain and have the player donate to the Sandbox Sisters for it is what I'm suggesting, unless they want to have a pilgrim background.

[Drako Slyith]

I agree. I remember there was some talk about classes, adventurer, pirate, trader, or pilgrim. They affect your starting alignment, and some places are off limits if you aren't a certain class. Pilgrims were the only ones that got Domina powers.

[Ttech]

I think this is interesting but all these things have to be available to the player without being set on one diretion. But the work you guys are going crazy with so far is pretty interesting.

[RPC]

General question: any ideas for what to do when NPC mining is implemented?

I was thinking about overriding the intAsteroidOnMining so that asteroids won't run out of ore. Then I'd make the player get a mining liscence of sorts from the faction that "owns" the system (or maybe the asteroid belt?) that deducts a certain kind of currency over time using a recurringtimer event. Whenever the player tries to mine, the IntAsteroidOnMining will be called that will check if the player has a mining permit. If not, an enforcer fleet will come and when they are within 50 ls, will apprehend the playership and force them to pay a fine, as well as take all the ores in the cargo hold. I have a general idea of how to code this, and hopefully I can use the itemtables to extrapolate how to redo the mining event.

[Atarlost]

General question: any ideas for what to do when NPC mining is implemented?

I was thinking about overriding the intAsteroidOnMining so that asteroids won't run out of ore. Then I'd make the player get a mining liscence of sorts from the faction that "owns" the system (or maybe the asteroid belt?) that deducts a certain kind of currency over time using a recurringtimer event. Whenever the player tries to mine, the IntAsteroidOnMining will be called that will check if the player has a mining permit. If not, an enforcer fleet will come and when they are within 50 ls, will apprehend the playership and force them to pay a fine, as well as take all the ores in the cargo hold. I have a general idea of how to code this, and hopefully I can use the itemtables to extrapolate how to redo the mining event.

That's the sort of scripted enforcement that doesn't fit in the setting. Outlaw miners are running borer IIs and hammerhead IIs at most and aren't getting wiped out by corporate enforcers.

Instead how about tagging ore. If it's purchased it gets tagged. If it's not tagged you can't sell it without a license. There should remain some inconvenient workarounds like the tinkers.

Or possibly have CW and corporate stations refuse to install mining lasers or holds on unlicensed ships.